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Bedbug plague invades Ohio
Cincinnati In this Ohio city, it seems, it really is tough to stop the bedbugs from biting.
- - Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
- Published: 23:35 January 5, 2009
Cincinnati In this Ohio city, it seems, it really is tough to stop the bedbugs from biting.
When complaints about the blood-sucking insects first trickled in to Cincinnati's public health department three years ago, officials assumed it was an anomaly - or perhaps the overactive imagination of a bug-phobic public. After all, "Cimex lectularius" had all but vanished here by the 1950s because of the frequent use of DDT and other now-banned pesticides.
But that trickle of complaints has grown into a flood: A recent public survey found that one in six people here has had a run-in with the biting bugs in the last 12 months.
Dozens of fire stations in Cincinnati have had to dump furniture or fumigate their living quarters as firefighters unknowingly brought the eggs in on their clothes. Assisted-living complexes have spent tens of thousands of dollars on pest-control companies because, the thinking goes, visitors might have carried in the bugs on their purses or bags.
City health department officials said they receive more frantic calls about the insects than about mice, rats and cockroaches combined.
If things continue, "We won't be able to keep up with the requests for inspections," said Camille Jones, assistant Cincinnati health commissioner and member of a city-county bedbug task force. "It's a problem that we expect to only get worse."
Sniffer dogs
Cincinnati is not alone in its woes. Reports of a welt-covered public are coming in from college campuses, high-end hotels and even movie theatres.
University officials at Texas A&M in College Station have flown in bedbug-sniffing dogs to root out the insects. The University of Florida, Gainesville reportedly has spent tens of thousands of dollars to clear out dorm rooms and campus apartments of infestations.
In New York, there were 8,830 bedbug complaints in 2008, up from 1,839 in 2005, according to the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development. The bugs have shown up in unexpected places: A Fox News executive said the Manhattan newsroom had to be fumigated for bedbugs and furniture replaced after an employee tracked the insects in.
Task forces aimed at eradicating the bugs and educating the public have been established in numerous states - including Kentucky, Minnesota and Ohio.
In California, the bugs have become such a problem that the state's Department of Public Health started surveying local public health agencies in 2007 to understand the scope of the infestation. Among the reasons cited for the return of the bugs: the DDT ban and an increase in international travel.
But guessing the extent of the problem nationwide is difficult, entomologists say. Part of the problem is that cash-strapped cities don't see the insect as a public-health priority. Unlike fleas or mosquitoes, bedbugs aren't disease carriers.
"Anyone can be at risk," said Greg Kesterman, director of environmental health for the Hamilton County Public Health agency, which includes Cincinnati. Kesterman noted that the county received two complaints about bedbugs in 2003 and nearly 300 in 2008.
Entomology: Hard-to-kill insects feed on blood
Often mistaken for ticks, adult bedbugs are about a quarter-inch long and reddish-brown. They are active mostly at night, and their bites can leave itchy welts on the skin.
During the day they tend to hide near places where people sleep - such as the seams of mattresses - or in wall cracks or beneath furniture. The eggs are white, sticky and about the size of a speck of dust, so people unknowingly can spread them from room to room or even across town.
"Set a bag down on the carpet, or walk through an infested area, and it's almost impossible to tell that you're walking out with shoes or a bag that has bedbug eggs stuck to them," Jones said.
Once the bugs are there, they are not easy to kill. Most over-the-counter insecticides won't work, and clearing the problem up can take several treatments from a professional exterminator.
There's also a social stigma associated with the insect; unlike some other vermin, bedbugs are attracted to blood - such as a human's or an animal's - not to garbage.
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